


Ocean Rain

by IronWoman359



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive Parents, M/M, Mermaid Patton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22614997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronWoman359/pseuds/IronWoman359
Summary: It was a rainy night. But it was Wednesday. And in almost six months, Virgil hadn’t missed a single Wednesday.Virgil sneaks out of his house to go down to the seaside, where a very special someone is waiting for him.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 11
Kudos: 178





	Ocean Rain

It was a rainy night. But it was Wednesday.

And in almost six months, Virgil hadn’t missed a single Wednesday, so he wasn’t about to let a little foul weather stop him now. He poked his head into the living room and was greeted with the familiar sight of the back of his mom’s head outlined against the glare of the television. There was an open wine bottle on the end table next to her, and Virgil knew if she wasn’t out already, she would be in the next half hour. Satisfied, he pulled his hood up over his head and slipped out the back door. 

The walk from his house to the beach was a short one, a path Virgil knew so well that even under the heavy curtain of rainfall that turned everything around him into a hazy, blurry mess, he reached the shoreline in less than ten minutes. Still, by the time he waded into the surf, he was soaked to the bone and his teeth were chattering slightly as he wrapped his now useless hoodie tighter around his shoulders. 

Most people would probably think he was crazy, a teenager standing alone in the cold in the ocean in the middle of the night, rain pouring down around him. But Virgil wasn’t crazy. He was waiting. 

He didn’t have to wait very long. 

He hadn’t been there five minutes before a pair of bright eyes poked up out of the water. They lit up with delight when they landed on Virgil, and then the owner of those eyes lifted up further, his head and shoulders rising above the water. 

“Virgil!” the merman chirped happily, and despite the cold, the rain, and the ever present, ever nagging emptiness gnawing at his stomach, Virgil smiled. 

“Hey, Patton,” Virgil said, wading deeper into the ocean until the water was up to his waist. A frown flickered across Patton’s face.

“I thought you might not make it tonight…” he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “It’s pretty stormy up here.”

Virgil shrugged, trying to ignore the way his own bangs were plastered to his forehead.

“It’s not so bad,” he said, but Patton didn’t look convinced. 

“Virgil, you’re soaking wet.”

“Patton, I’m standing in the ocean,” Virgil responded, his lips quirking upward. “Besides, you live underwater. If I was put off by getting wet, we wouldn’t have become friends in the first place.” 

“You’re shaking.”

“Huh?” 

Virgil hadn’t really noticed once Patton had appeared, but he supposed he was still trembling a little from the cold. His hoodie was well and truly drenched now; he may as well have dunked his head beneath the waves. 

“Virgil, you should go home,” Patton said gently, and Virgil let out a half-choked laugh. 

“And spend the rest of the night holed up in my room with the TV blaring outside hoping my mom doesn’t wake up and decide to pay my room a visit? No thanks.” 

Patton made a small, distressed sound in the back of his throat, and Virgil cursed inwardly. He tried not to let on how shitty his home life was, the last thing he wanted to do was upset Patton, but sometimes he was just too tired, and things slipped out. From the look Patton was giving him now, Virgil knew that the merman had been able to infer at least a few things about his situation. Enough to know that it wasn’t good.

“Virgil…” Patton began, his voice careful and soothing. “If it’s that bad…you should _leave_.” 

“I…” Virgil’s voice caught in his throat, and he didn’t know whether to blame the sudden surge of exhaustion on the rain, Patton’s impossibly gentle tone, or just his own stupid brain. “I can’t…I’m seventeen and can’t survive on my own, I have nowhere I can go, no other relatives, no friends, I…” Virgil looked down, closing his eyes, suddenly glad of the rain to help conceal his tears. “I have _no one.”_

A hand clasped his own, and he opened his eyes to find Patton staring at him with a fierce determination shining in his eyes. 

“You have me,” he said firmly, and Virgil’s lips twisted into a shaky smile. 

“Yeah…yeah, I do.” He squeezed Patton’s hand, staring down at their intertwined fingers. “You’re the one good thing in my stupid excuse of a life.” 

Patton bit his lip, then reached up and gently cupped Virgil’s face.

“Virgil, can I ask you something?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper, and Virgil nodded. “Do you love me?” 

Virgil froze, his eyes growing wide, and Patton let his hand fall away from his face. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

“Yes!” Virgil blurted out, and it was Patton’s turn to freeze. “I do, Patton. I love you, I…I think I’ve loved you for ages.”

Patton’s eyes were shining, and Virgil had a feeling that it wasn’t the weather’s doing.

“Really?” he asked, and Virgil nodded, a shy smile on his face. 

“Yeah…really. I just…didn’t want to lose my only friend in the world, and…I mean, you can’t be on land and I can’t live in the water so it’s not like it could even really work-”

“Virgil, may I kiss you?” 

“You may,” Virgil breathed, and then Patton was surging upwards, pressing his mouth against Virgil’s.

Patton tasted like the sea on a warm summer’s day, and if Virgil closed his eyes he could almost forget that it was raining. He didn’t want this moment to ever end, he wanted to stay right here and never go back to his mom’s house and- 

Virgil gasped as he felt something shift inside him, and his eyes flew open in a panic, but they landed on Patton’s freckle covered face hovering inches from his own. 

“Virgil, do you trust me?” Patton asked, eyes wide and earnest, and Virgil nodded.

“Of course I do,” he said, and Patton pressed their foreheads together. 

“Then close your eyes,” he murmured, then his lips were on Virgil’s again. 

His eyes slipped closed and Virgil felt Patton pull him gently down beneath the waves. As his head was submerged, he expected to feel fear, panic, water filling his lungs, but with Patton’s arms wrapped around him he found there was no room for any of that in his mind. 

There was only room for Patton, for their lips pressed together, for their fingers in each others hair, for their tails wrapped around each other…

Wait, _tails_?

Virgil’s eyes flew open and Patton let out a bubbly giggle as Virgil stared down at his legs…or rather where his legs used to be. In their place was a shimmering purple tail, nearly identical in size and shape to Patton’s blue one. It was then that it really hit Virgil that he was somehow _breathing,_ and his hands flew to his neck. 

“Patton…” he said slowly, part of him marveling at how _easy_ it was to speak underwater. “Do I…have _gills?”_

“It worked, it worked!” Patton cried before grabbing Virgil’s hands, laughing and spinning him around in a circle. 

“I- what worked, Pat?” Virgil asked, laughing too as Patton spun him around. 

“There’s a legend,” Patton explained, eyes wide with wonder. “That if a mer and a human are truly in love, one can cross the boundaries of nature for the other.” 

“So…..you turned me into a merman,” Virgil said carefully. 

“ _Love_ turned you into a merman!” Patton said happily. He froze then, his happy expression turning into something shy and almost fearful. “Is…is that okay? I think there’s a way to change you back, if it isn’t…but if you wanted to…you could stay?”

Virgil stared in disbelief. 

“Stay…in the ocean? With you?” 

Patton’s face fell, and he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Y-yeah…this was silly of me, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

Virgil cut him off by throwing his arms around his neck, and Patton squeaked in surprise. 

“ _Yes,”_ Virgil gasped, pulling back and meeting Patton’s eyes, a wide smile finally splitting his face. “Yes, I…oh my god, Patton, I would _love_ that.” 

Patton grinned, and as the two of them leaned into another kiss, Virgil finally felt warm.


End file.
